Zuckerberg Tries To Do Damage Control on ‘Ugly Truth’ Memo

Another day, another uproar involving Facebook and another attempt at damage control by Mark Zuckerberg. On Friday, Facebook officials tried to distance themselves from comments made by company vice president Andrew Bosworth in a 2016 memo in which Bosworth said that whatever Facebook did to connect people was acceptable, no matter the results or seemingly the consequences.

“So we connect more people,” wrote Bosworth, in the memo, a copy of which was obtained by Buzzfeed. “That can be bad if they make it negative. Maybe it costs someone a life by exposing someone to bullies. Maybe someone dies in a terrorist attack coordinated on our tools. And still we connect people.”

Also in the memo, entitled “The Ugly Truth,” Bosworth wrote that, “We believe in connecting people so deeply that anything that allows us to connect more people more often is *de facto* good.”

Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg quickly disavowed those views from Bosworth, a top lieutenant who has been with the company since 2006 and whom Zuckerberg called a “talented leader” who “says many provocative things.”

“This was one that most people at Facebook including myself disagreed with strongly,” Zuckerberg said in a statement to this news organization. “We’ve never believed the ends justify the means.”

Bosworth took to Twitter on Friday morning, saying that his memo was taken out of context and that not only doesn’t he agree with its content now, but he also didn’t at the time he wrote it.

“The purpose of this post, like many others I have written internally, was to bring to the surface issues I felt deserved more discussion with the broader company,” Bosworth wrote. “I care deeply about how our product affects people and I take very personally the responsibility I have to make that impact positive.”